Seventy three miles, thirty four exits, a Spotify playlist on repeat, and I still can’t escape. I can’t escape the thoughts, the doubts, the confusion.

I could just give him the stereotypical ultimatum that every girl pining for an explanation gives - ‘we’re either everything or nothing.’ But I can’t do that because I want something. I don’t know how to be ‘nothing’ with him and if we’re being honest, I don’t want to know.

But when a eighty six minute road trip can’t solve my problems, I don’t know where else to turn. So instead, I turn everywhere and everything. Turn onto my road a little too fast so I can feel the stomach dropping power of a brake. Turn the key two clicks back in the ignition feels like taking two steps back. Turn on the shower to camouflage my tears and drown my thoughts. Turn up the music that shows that someone else feels what I feel. Turn off my phone so I don’t have to face the rest of the world. But the one turn I refuse to take is the one that will put me face to face with what I’m avoiding.

I’m sitting here begging for an epiphany that will never come. Problems that only him and I have the ability to fix. And yet I’m turning to everything and everyone in my world, except for him.

I don’t like giving away the control. I don’t like throwing my hands in the air and saying ‘this one’s up to you.’ I don’t like not knowing what is going to happen. I don’t like playing my poker chips when there’s zero guarantee I’ll see any one of those chances again. I’ve never been able to just say I’m all in.

I don’t have everything, but I have something. And soon I need to risk having everything, or my something is going to start meaning nothing.

I’ve driven seventy three miles and I feel like I haven’t moved at all.